


The Music Box

by DarkOwlFeather



Category: Rapunzel's Tangled Adventure (Cartoon)
Genre: Angst, Auditory Illusions, Canon Compliant, Cassandra's childhood, Cassandra-Centric, Childhood Trauma, Few Dialogues, Hallucinations, Music, One-Shot, Panic Attacks, music box
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-27
Updated: 2020-10-27
Packaged: 2021-03-08 23:41:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,458
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27225211
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DarkOwlFeather/pseuds/DarkOwlFeather
Summary: Gothel gave Cassandra a music box. When she left, the music box shattered into pieces, in despair.“The perfect music of Cassandra’s life had disappeared. Shards as sharp as her mother’s blade would take its place. And stab the notes of happiness. Where the flowers of joy and innocence grew, now were growing the thorns of pain and grief, of hatred.”
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	The Music Box

It was a perfect day for a perfect child. Cassandra was awaken by her mother coming back from the market in town. As always, there was food, and a little something or two to clean the house. Cassandra saw that with wide interested eyes, always ready to help her mother by sweeping around, getting the dirt out of the house. Her mother loved her very much, and she loved her so much more, as a child loves her parent.

Near the basket of groceries, there was a little package, twice as big as her two child fists closed side by side. It was wrapped in brown paper, with a little ribbon of rope to close it. She went to take the package, curious, but before she could reach it, her mother took it, and put it behind her back, a giggling smile and a teaching finger pointed toward Cassandra.

“Ah ah, no Cassandra, not yet,” said Gothel.

“But Mama…”

“No “but”, dear. Later. Come, we have lunch to prepare.”

Gothel put the little package in one of the drawers of her vanity behind the privacy screen dividing the room. It was a place Cassandra had been told she couldn’t go.

After lunch, Cassandra went to sweep the floor, as she always did most of the days long. Gothel went to sit at the table against the window, reading a brochure from the town, but that didn’t seem to interest her much. She finally threw it away, only for Cassandra to take it from the floor to put it with the rest of the trash. Her mother went to her vanity behind the screen, but she didn’t sit there as she often did to check her wrinkles or her hair. No, this time, she opened the drawer from earlier and took the little package, before heading back to the table.

“Cassandra,” she called, “come here, dear.”

“What is it, Mama?”

“Mama has something special for you, dear. Come, sit,” she half ordered.

And so Cassandra climbed on the chair next to her mother and stayed stood up, so she could see above the table. Gothel put the little package on the table, and nodded to her child to open it.

“For me?” checked Cassandra.

It was her first gift ever. After the broom, if you counted that as a gift.

“Yes, for you,” assured Gothel, tapping mindlessly on the table, her fingers finally touching a hand mirror sitting there doing nothing.

She looked at it for a moment, noticing what she had just done, but not minding it for long. Cassandra was opening the package. The rope ribbon was already put in a pile on the table, certainly not let to fall on the recently swept floor. Parts of the brown paper followed, like apple peels ripped from the fruit. And what fruit! Underneath the brown protection, there was a little blue box, big as an adult hand, with yellow lining on the edges.

“What is it?” asked Cassandra, watching inquisitively the unknown box.

“It’s a music box dear,” explained Gothel, turning the little metal key on the front side of the box, letting a gentle tune fill the room. “Like this. Whenever you hear this tune, you’ll think of your dear sweet Mama and the love I have for you.”

Cassandra’s breath was caught in her throat. It was her first gift ever. And it was beautiful. She jumped at her mother’s neck and hugged her tightly.

“I love you Mama!”

She then took the music box in her tiny child hands and trotted to the bedroom she shared with her mother.

In the living room, Gothel sighed, relieved, tired and disdainful.

“Hopefully that’ll keep her out of my hair for a while.”

Cassandra, alone with the perfect music in her perfect bedroom of her perfect life, didn’t hear that. The rest was already too perfect.

Until it wasn’t perfect anymore.

One day in the afternoon, Gothel prepared herself to leave the house.

“Wind, please,” asked her Cassandra before she left, handing her the music box.

“Must I do everything myself?” asked Gothel aloud with a very displeased tone.

Cassandra didn’t care. She knew her mother didn’t really thought the voice she used, that she truly didn’t mean it.

And Gothel winded the music box, with a forced smile Cassandra believed real, then, without another word, left the house. Cassandra, her music box playing its gentle tune in her hands, went back inside, put the music box on the bench by the window, and took the broom, sweeping the floor, as always. She hummed and singsonged a little song to go with the box’s music, as she went through the whole area again, and again.

Down the vanity of her mother, nearly at the private area she wasn’t allowed to go, there was a heart of red paper on the floor. It had came to the house one day in Gothel’s basket of groceries. It had been the Day of Hearts in town, and Cassandra had offered the heart to her mother, who didn’t even know she had brought it back home.

Cassandra swept the dirt away from the heart with her hand and a gentle blow as to not bind the paper or, worst of all, rip it in half. She took it with her to the bedroom, and put in on Gothel’s pillow. Then, tired, she turned around to take a cover in her bed just a meter away, and went to sit behind the window, waiting for her mother to come home.

And she came home. But, she never reached home.

It was pitch black out there in the night. Cassandra only heard the run of a horse, and then, it wasn’t a horse anymore, there were a lot more. Horses stopped at the river next to the house, and descended people in armor. They had lanterns, torches. One man kicked the door open, and shouted to whoever could listen: “Where is she?! Where is the princess?!”

Cassandra couldn’t answer. She didn’t know of any princess. But, looking through the window, she saw in the dark a shadow she knew. She trotted to the wide open door, her little music box in her hands.

“Mama?” she asked in the dark.

The soldiers around her turned as one toward the hooded figure on the other side of the river. Gothel, out there, was holding a babe in her arms. And the soldiers knew who it was. They started running to her, but she had a sword, and with the sword, she cut the bridge of ropes and wood.

“Mama!?” repeated the young Cassandra, not understanding why would her mother cut the bridge.

Until Gothel mounted again the horse she had and ran away.

The music box fell on the ground. There was no sound anymore. A soldier knelt in front of Cassandra and talked, putting his heavy helmet on her head. But she didn’t hear him. The music box was broken. The music had stopped. The perfect song of the perfect life was gone.

“I want my Mama!” cried Cassandra, as the soldier took her in his arms, knowing her Mama wouldn’t come back.

The music box would never sing its songs again. It was gone. It laid there, bare on the floor.

The perfect music of Cassandra’s life had disappeared. Shards as sharp as her mother’s blade would take its place. And stab the notes of happiness. Where the flowers of joy and innocence grew, now were growing the thorns of pain and grief, of hatred.

Unless… They couldn’t grow yet.

Few days after Cassandra had been brought at the castle in Corona, she spent her time as always, sweeping the floor. The soldier who brought her back, the captain, had told her not to, that there were people for that here. But Cassandra didn’t listen, and kept sweeping. She didn’t have a music box to listen to, pretending nothing had happened. So she did what she knew. She swept the floor. The captain had tried to hide the brooms. But she swept with a mop she held in her fist.

Until one day, she saw on a desk a box. It wasn’t blue with yellow lining. It was a blank wooden box, deep brown. She took it, beaming gleefully at her treasure, and trotted to the captain’s office, which she already knew was near the armory and the old battlements now hidden behind recently built walls and wings.

She trotted through the corridors, never asking herself if she had taken a wrong turn or not. She knew where to go. And as she arrived at the captain’s office, she went to his desk, and climbed on the chair in front of it. There were soldiers around, looking at her curiously. She didn’t care. She had the right to be here.

“Wind, please,” she said to the captain, when at last he noticed her presence in front of him.

He looked at her, then at the box in her hands, and her again.

“You want me to… wind this?”

“Yes. Wind, please,” repeated Cassandra, even more pleadingly than before.

“But, kid, that is no music box. It’s a match box. Here, there are matches inside,” he said, almost laughing while opening the box.

“What does it do then?”

“Well, we use matches to lit a fire, when we need light.”

“I want my music box!”

“I don’t have a music box,” he said, sadly, hoping she wouldn’t insist more.

She didn’t insist more. She stormed out of the room and ran in the corridors. The captain and his soldiers watched her, bewildered. There were not a lot among them who knew how to deal with kids.

The next day, the captain went back to the room they had given Cassandra. He knocked lightly on the door, waiting for an answer. He heard nothing. Slowly, he opened the door, to see if she was even in there. Indeed she was, sleeping soundly in her bed.

There weren’t much personal objects or decorations in the room. They never went back to the cottage to get her belongings. So, every soldier had started giving her a little something, a toy from their own kids, a carving in a piece of wood, a sword or halberd with a dull blade, a colorful top, a dress she never wore, few books to read when she’ll know how, and for the moment, that was about everything.

He took the only chair in the room and brought it silently close to the bed. On the nightstand, he put a little box with purple and yellow paint. Cassandra was still asleep. Outside, the sun was high. It was soon midday. He sigh, already regretting to awaken her, but finally decided to turn the metal key on the front side of the box. And then, a gentle song filled the room. It wasn’t the same tune Gothel had given her, of course. He didn’t know this tune. How could he? The music box was broken, and there was no way to listen to it anymore. Now, the one he had existed, and it was his gift to Cassandra.

It didn’t take her long before waking up at the sound of the music box. She yawned, letting sleep slowly leave her, and watched around. At first she only saw the captain through her still blurry eyes. Then, her ears heard clearer and she turned to see the music box.

“What is it?” she asked him.

“A music box,” he said, smiling, assured this gift would be well received.

But it wasn’t. The tune, the sight of the music box brought tears to her eyes, and her vision went blurrier than before. She was crying. For what? He was nice to her, he tried to give her something she had asked for. For some reason, she couldn’t remember why she was crying. It hurt. It hurt to cry as well as to not know why she was crying for.

“I want my Mama!” she finally cried out, unable to bury the words anymore.

The captain didn’t know what to answer. The woman they saw that night, was she Cassandra’s mother? Or someone else? In the dark, could Cassandra have not well recognized her mother? Was her mother out there, scouring everywhere for her child? Or was the woman who had came after the princess and kidnapped her Cassandra’s mother? He didn’t know what to answer to any of those questions.

Cassandra couldn’t take it anymore. She pulled the covers out of a sudden and ran away, crying for her mother. The captain took the music box back in his pocket, and left the room, trying to keep her track. There was no need to lose the kid in the castle. He found her soon enough.

She was curled up in a corner of the corridors, just behind an armoire, tightly hugging her knees. He knelt beside her, and approached slowly, showing her he didn’t have the music box anymore in sight. She looked up at him, still sobbing greatly. And so, he extended his arms, smiling fondly to her. And she let him take her into an embrace.

“Your mother’s not here, little one,” he said. “But I can be your father. If you let me try. I want what’s best for you.”

She was still sobbing, but her sobbing calmed slowly.

“Will you?” she asked with a small voice.

“I will, Cassandra. I promise. And I will not speak of what hurts you. I didn’t know. Now I do. It won’t happen again. I promise.”

And for years, he kept his promise. For years, they didn’t speak of music box anymore.

For years, a lot of years, nearly two decades, he kept his promise. And for these nearly two decades, they never ever spoke of music box.

Until someone brought music back to Corona.

Those nearly two decades, eighteen years to be precise, were put to good use by Cassandra. For the first few years, the captain helped her find other things to do than sweeping all day. So, he showed her how to use a sword. Then, he invited her to watch the guards’ training sessions. For the first time, she found something to do in her newly found perfect life.

She trained as well, for years and years, and received new weapons. Halberds, swords, daggers, even crossbows and bows. They weren’t toys anymore. She was even trusted to take care of a young owl a group of guards had found in the forest during one of the many searches for the ever so lost princess. She trained a lot with him, and he learned to fly with her.

And then came a day her training was interrupted.

The king and queen had asked the captain to have Cassandra spend her days with the castle’s handmaidens, and not anymore in the training fields. At first, she didn’t mind this new assignment, it gave her something else to do, to learn.

But soon, it was boring, and Cassandra only longed for the scarce hours of the day when she wasn’t needed in the castle to go train on her own in the fields, to take the mare Fidella on a ride through the forest, and just feel the wind in her hair, the sound of the wind in her ears, like nothing in the world existed except this song. The song of nature, the call of the wild, that filled her head with nothing else but the songs of birds, of running rivers, the chants of fire crackling in the dark. It was her song.

And then, one day this song stopped, and once again her song was broken.

The lost princess wasn’t lost anymore. And Cassandra, for a reason she didn’t get, was assigned as her lady-in-waiting. Her of all people. The woman who only felt free on a horse or with a sword in her hands, the kid they told to stop doing house duty, they wanted her to spend her days on princess duty, dressing, bathing, helping, waiting on a person who kept saying that during her whole life she did all those things herself and didn’t need any help. But Cassandra had been tasked. And she followed this task to the letter.

Even the day Rapunzel was desperate for freedom, she obeyed. Though this time, this order felt to her like a deliverance. For the first time in so many years, she felt free as she took the princess to a place her father had taken her once or twice. The ledge on the cliff where the magical Sundrop Flower had been.

The rocks there sang a gentle song in the wind, cutting shards slicing the gale from the sea. It was always soothing, and Cassandra tried to come here as much as possible. And this time, she was with someone she had grew fond of. It was perfect. The waves below were singing, the rocks chanting but then, they started to glow.

And the song stopped once again.

The strings of the harpsichord Rapunzel was playing were as tense as Cassandra’s nerve when she came back from talking to the king. And the music broke with a false note as the princess stood up to walk to her friend.

“What did he say?”

“He trusts what you said, Raps. I assured him I was in my room all night long.”

“Phew! I’m glad you’re okay. Do… you want to join me on the piano?”

“It’s not a piano, it’s a harpsichord. And, no, I can’t. I don’t know how to play. And… I’m not really a music person.”

“Oh… Well, you can come paint with me then. I was just passing time waiting for you. We’ll be better in my room.”

Rapunzel took her hand, which always startled Cassandra each time she did it, and trotted to the stairs leading to her bedroom.

And from this day on, the music never came back.

Until, it came back as the sound of war.

The king knew. Rapunzel, Cassandra and Eugene were walking as one toward the throne room when the music came back. But the sight that went with it was even more frightening than the gentle tune itself. An automaton, which they understood at once had been built by Varian, the only one they knew capable of such a feat, was standing before them. The fight was rather short. Using the automaton’s size and equilibrium against it, turning its strength into its weakness, they defeated it, as it fell in the courtyard below with a loud thump.

But, its work was done, even if this work wasn’t the one it had been built for.

The music box controlling it had played its song. Its final song, like a mute swan sings before leaving.

And the sound awaken a deep sorrow in Cassandra. At first, it felt like a headache, and she thought it would go away by itself. But hours after hours that day, the headache stayed and worsened. And then, a ting from a distant corridor – certainly someone hitting one of the display armors – though not a note, broke the dam built years after years.

It was a single tear that came first, rolling on her cheek. And a slight tremor in her hands. Then, not knowing why, her vision blurred and though she wasn’t accustomed to showing her emotions, it came and didn’t hold back. Her eyes saw the room around her, but it was dizzy, unstable, nauseous even. She had reflexes, good ones thanks to the intense training she had put herself through. And as stealthy as possible in this unknown condition, she left the war room where a meeting had been called after the second attack, in the courtyard. Past the door, she ran through the corridors toward her room, away, floors below, hitting walls on her way.

As she left in a hurry, she didn’t notice the glances of Rapunzel and her father toward her, worried glances. Turning back to watch the meeting again, their glances met, and they knew something was wrong.

After the meeting, the captain went to Cassandra’s room. He was still wounded, and walked, against the advisement of the doctor, with a pair of crutches. Rapunzel saw him just before the last corner.

“Are you going to see her?” she asked him.

“Yes. Are you?”

“Well, I was going to, but… You should go, you’re her father. I have to… check the plans for the attack after all. Err… Don’t be too hard on her,” she advised with a fond smile she secretly hoped he would give to Cassandra.

“I won’t,” he promised, resuming his progression.

When he was at the door, he knocked with one of his crutches, and waited. Cassandra didn’t answer, but he heard her, inside, sobbing. So he carefully opened the door, as to not spook her. The day had already be a long one, and it was going to be even longer now that they had planned an attack. He entered, and cleared his throat to get her attention, as he made his way up to the bed.

“How do you feel?” he asked her.

She was as she had been that day long ago, alone in the corridor against the armoire, hugging her knees and sobbing for a music box. Now, she was in the corner of her bed, but it was the same.

“Bad,” she mumbled, not minding looking up to him.

“Do you want to talk about it?”

“Talk about what?” she spat out.

She was avoiding the discussion, as always when it came to feelings and those personal things she knew she didn’t handle well.

“Is there something you want to tell me?”

“There’s nothing I have to tell you!”

He heard her sobbing even more, her head hidden behind her knees, her hair falling in locks on her legs.

“Cassandra, please. I want to help you… talk to me.”

“Talk! You were sending me away without a word, and you want me to talk!?”

She lifted her head suddenly, revealing her face, redden by tears.

“Cassandra…”

“No, dad, I don’t want to talk about anything. Not now, not ever. We’re done.”

She stood up firmly, and walked across her room, cleaning her face with the bucket’s fresh water she had on the table. In the mirror, she looked pitiful. And it wasn’t a sight she wanted to see before going to battle. Her fist found the hard and cold reflection, shattered reflection that made the shards of mirror fall on the floor, with the sounds of solid rain, clinking notes echoing in the room.

Notes. She closed her ears with her hands, she didn’t want to listen to any of it. Her father, the notes of mirror falling. There was only one sound she wanted to listen at the moment. The sound of her sword unsheathed charging Old Corona.

She grabbed the scabbard with her sword inside of it, and opened the door, not even looking to her father still sat on the bed with his crutches beside him.

“I’ll see you tomorrow,” she said as she left him alone.

On the floor, as he stood up to leave, his crutches hit the mirror shards. The sound they made was clear, hard and short like an arrow hitting its target, bullseye.

She hoped there wouldn’t be music anymore that day but the music of swords shattering against their adversaries.

She was wrong.

In Old Corona, the other automatons waiting for them were controlled by music boxes, like the one in the castle. It took them all a lot, to fight them off, to use the black rocks around to impale the big robots. But in the end, they did it.

But in the end, the music was stuck in Cassandra’s head, longing to leave, to flee, but it was like glued in her mind, it couldn’t go away. She tried to hide her malaise while they went back to the castle that night. Nobody seemed to notice her. They were all making sure the kidnapped queen was alright, or keeping an eye on the prisoner. Speaking of him, Cassandra slowed her pace to walk beside the cart in which he was.

“Why did you use music boxes for your automatons?” she asked through the bars.

“As if you care,” spat the kid.

“I’m just curious.”

“Could you be curious about getting me out of here?”

“Not a chance.”

She slowed her pace again, so she now walked behind the cart and not anymore beside it. Through the bars, she saw Varian, exhausted and beaten. He only wanted to save his dad. And he failed. No one understood what had happened, why it didn’t work. If it had, he would maybe not be there in this cart, driving him to the castle’s jail. And now, they had all failed, and the kid had lost his dad. It would take a miracle for Quirin to even still be alive in this rock sarcophagus of his. He had lost his only parent. Somehow, Cassandra understood. But she couldn’t remember exactly why.

“You won’t tell me?” she tried again, with a softer voice.

She felt sorry for him. He had been a good friend, an ally. And now, she was trying to have a semblance of normal conversation. Even though she still had the ringing of the battle in her ears, the musics from the automatons playing again and again. And she swore, if she blinked and looked somewhere, for only a very short time, she could see little boxes with a key on the front side. But she couldn’t tell anyone, she couldn’t tell him.

“Why would I do that?”

“I don’t know, the chance to explain science to someone who’ll listen.”

He sighed, knowing she was right. Explaining what he had in his mind when experimenting was certainly the second best thing next to having his experiments work for real and not only on paper. Plus, in this case, it would maybe lighten up his spirit and help him not dive into despair.

“Well, the cylinder used for music boxes stores an information. For music boxes, it’s a repetitive pattern that, when scratched by a single lamina of metal, will give a sound. And the succession of different sounds thanks to different sizes of lamina gives you a music. But now, it can be any information. And I made it so the information gives the automaton the ability to move on its own depending of what’s carved on the cylinder.”

“So they always move with the same pattern?”

“Unless you change the cylinder.”

“Okay. Listen, kid, I can’t do anything for you, but thanks for the explanation.”

“Can we… continue talking?”

“I think we can.”

Till they reached the castle, they talked of science and a lot of things. At a time, the science fair came, then went away, then went the scroll found in his lab, and they stopped talking. It brought back memories of his dad, and the joy and happy life that from now on could only be found in dreams.

In the night, a wolf howled far away. Others brought their voices to the song, and in the moonlight, shadows appeared on a cliff miles away. When the procession came in sight, they stopped singing and watched the people down there, on the path.

Like the music boxes of the automatons, their song found an end. And fangs pierced, thorns grew, shards stabbed all who felt guilt. Sadness. Abandon. Cold.

Warmth only came back a few days later. But not for long. Never for long. The songs came back.

It was about a week after the attack. Old Corona had suffered a lot of losses. Mostly buildings, thankfully. But now, they had to rebuild. And so, in order to raise founds, a fair had been organized on the hill of Corona. Nearly every profession was represented. Kids were running happily in the streets, like they didn’t understand what had happen lately. Which, maybe, they didn’t for the youngest among them.

In the crowd, Rapunzel was enjoying the fair with Eugene and Cassandra, welcoming people here to buy or sell. As a royal, she had been told to avoid showing an interest in a stand and not another as to preserve the equity between the merchants. But that didn’t get her to not talk a lot with painters, try some objects here and there or fill an entire sketchbook.

Near the end of the morning, a stand in the main street caught her attention. It was filled with little boxes, some of them open, some with a little dancer sculpted on top of them, but most of all, this stand was the one with the most music in the whole fair. As Rapunzel approached the table, she recognized the boxes.

And as joy filled her, unease filled Cassandra, for a reason she never truly understood. Why was she acting strange near music boxes? First with the automatons, now this? It wasn’t like it brought back bad memories. Right…?

“Music boxes! I always wanted to wind one of these!” said Rapunzel with a jubilant voice.

“Wind, please,” half-whispered Cassandra with an almost childish voice.

She didn’t want to say those words. They came out like a reflex. And for a second, it felt familiar, protective, and so soothing to ask for wind. But after this too short second of childish elation, she felt like a pain in her stomach, like a stab of thorns and shards, and she winced at the pain. And the musics didn’t stop and the pain stayed. Still, she kept her confident self, standing straight, on protection duty, a hand on her sword’s handle by the hip, not showing any sign of the troubles her mind was bringing back.

“Of course I’m going to wind one of these,” said Rapunzel, approaching the stand, not looking to her friend, too curious to take her eyes off the stand.

“Whoa, would you look at that?” said Eugene with a mocking voice, patting her arm to get her attention. “Your eyes are unusually wet, Cass _an_ dra. I didn’t know miss ice heart could melt!”

“Eugene, stop bothering Cass, I’m sure she’s fine, she’s the bravest person I know. Yes, I said it,” told him Rapunzel, before turning around to face her friend. “Right Cass? Cass? Are you alright?” she asked when she saw the tears forming on the corner of Cassandra’s eyes.

“Will everyone stop asking me if I’m fine?!” she half-shouted, calming herself right on time to not get the whole fair’s attention more than they already have by their presence.

She brought her hand to her face and wiped the tears away. And Rapunzel noticed her hand, filled with tremors. And she saw too her erratic breath, unwontedly shaking.

“Cass, you are not alright,” she stated as a fact. “Is it the attack from the other day?”

“I’m fine!” this time shouted Cassandra before turning on her heels toward the castle.

When she was far enough, she started running through the courtyard. She thought her friends couldn’t see her, but she was wrong.

On her way up, the streets were full of nightmares. Wherever she looked, she saw boxes. There were paintings, make-up boxes, piles of cards, breads and horseshoes, candies… But Cassandra only saw boxes. Little blue boxes with yellow lining on the edges. She knew that box. She knew the tune her head played, even though she closed her ears with her fists. But from where did she know that music box? She didn’t remember. Why wouldn’t they leave her alone? The music, the music, it kept playing, and playing and playing.

“Leave me alone!” she shouted in the street to the musical demon after her.

The townspeople looked at her. But they heard nothing else than her shouts. There was no music. There was no music box away from the stand were the princess and her friend came from. Now the princess was running after her, and they made way for her.

“Cassandra!” she shouted through the street, not minding the people who could see or hear them.

“Get away! I said I’m fine! Argh! Make it stop! Stop the music!”

“Cass… What music?”

“Don’t you hear it?”

“There’s no music,” confirmed Rapunzel, walking toward her friend with an extended hand to calm her.

“No music?”

“No music,” she repeated.

Cassandra pulled her closed fists away from her ears and listened to the lie. Except… It wasn’t a lie. There really was no music out there. She blinked and saw no music box either.

“We’ll help you, Cass,” said Rapunzel, taking her by the arm as she walked back to the castle.

“I’m fine!” reaffirmed Cassandra, pulling her arm off of the soft grip, running toward the stables.

Rapunzel and Eugene stayed there under the archway, watching her run. She would certainly saddle up Fidella and go on a ride in the forest. Rapunzel started walking to get Maximus ready as well, but Eugene put a hand on her arm.

“She made it clear she wants to be alone,” he reminded her.

“She’s not fine. Not today.”

“She doesn’t want help. Look, Sunshine, I know you want to help her, but if she doesn’t want you to, she’ll just push you away.”

“She won’t. She’s my friend, Eugene. She wouldn’t. I know her.”

“I don’t think we really know her.”

Rapunzel looked at the stables, and Cassandra stormed out on Fidella, galloping out of the courtyard, and soon, out of the city. She sighed and watched her leave.

“Yeah, maybe you’re right,” she said, beaten. “Let’s go inside.”

Cassandra ran and ran with Fidella in the forest. To feel the songs of the winds and birds, Owl at their side swirling between the trees, that was a song she loved to hear. What had happened that day? She didn’t know. She didn’t want to know either.

It had to be the battle. Varian had used music boxes cylinders to control his automatons. It had to be a side-effect. Cassandra knew soldiers who came back from battles sometimes didn’t think clearly, felt like they were drowning, reliving the heat of the battle. It had to be that. It was normal. No big deal.

Alone with Owl and Fidella, and the songs of the wild, she listened, and let herself be immersed in the soothing sound. The songs in town were far behind, long gone, shattered by the distance. Their thorns, their shards couldn’t reach her. Not as long as she was with the forest.

Until the forest turned against her.

Months had passed. Cassandra had left Corona with the caravan led by Rapunzel, following the trail of black rocks to who knows where.

There had been a storm, a very bad one. And an odd shell-like inn by the road. A magic inn, designed to trap voyagers. And it had trapped them very well. Rapunzel was gone, nowhere to be seen. The group dispersed to find her, and leave at last the doomed place. And so Cassandra had been with Owl through the sea themed decorated corridors.

Until a door opened and called her name.

She crossed it, vigilant, sword ready to fight, and was welcomed by a forest, which took her quite aback. But it wasn’t all that was weird in this place. A ghost-like figure appears, knowing her name, from the bushes.

“Hello Cassandra. I had nearly giving up on you.”

“Who are you?”

“A friend. Or at least, I’d like to be. Come.”

“Wherever you’re taking me better have a blond princess,” muttered Cassandra as she followed the ghost through the woods, uncertain why she was even trusting her.

There was in the air a feeling of belonging, of home even. It was strange, her home was at the castle, it had always been. Or had it _always_ been?

They arrived at a cottage by a cliff. Familiarity, yes, that was what Cassandra was feeling. But how? She had never been there, never seen such a peaceful place. Or has she? She wasn’t certain anymore.

As they crossed the river, there was only the gentle song of the lapping water, and the creaking of the water wheel by the side of the cottage. Cassandra felt at peace there. She wanted to just sit on the grass and watch the house, just listen to the sounds of the forest, of the river.

But the ghost had other ideas in mind. She crossed the closed door of the house, flying through it like it wasn’t there. Cassandra followed her, crossing the door the same way, which added to the strangeness of the place.

Inside, there was a kid, who looked familiar. The kid had in her hands a little blue box with yellow lining on the edges. Cassandra’s breath left her throat. She knew who the kid was. But she didn’t recognize the place yet.

There was someone behind a privacy screen on a side of the room. The kid walked to her, and asked to wind the little box.

“Not now Cassandra, Mommy’s in a hurry,” said the woman, her mother, while standing up to go to the mirror next to the window.

Cassandra recognized her in an instant. Rapunzel had painted her countless times. Most times like a burning memory of past times, of pain and captivity. Gothel. There was no doubt possible. Cassandra had grown used to hate the woman for what she had done to Rapunzel, to the kingdom.

But this, this changed everything. Gothel, her mother? As improbable as it may seemed, the ghost showed her the truth. And deep inside her mind, in her most faraway memories, Cassandra knew it was real, knew it happened the way she was watching.

A sweet chime filled the air. She looked around, and saw the music box. The tune. She hadn’t heard it in years, oh so many years. A tear rolled on her cheeks, without warning. She had been happy then. Not that she wasn’t after, just… how could her life in Corona compete with the happiness of her childhood innocence showed bare before her eyes?

Why, how was she even looking at it? Who was the ghost to hold such power? Was it even the ghost, or was it the House’s magic? The ghost knew her, realized Cassandra. She knew her name, her life, where she had lived long ago. Was she some twisted immaterial embodiment of her conscience? To be able to show such repressed memories, she had to know Cassandra very well. She didn’t seem to be anything else than a hidden part of her subconscious made real by the magic of the House of Yesterday’s Tomorrow. How could it be otherwise?

While Cassandra was wondering about the cottage, the little kid who was herself, and the ghost by her side, she didn’t try to suppress the many tremors hitting her limbs. She was shaking like a leaf in the wind, but didn’t care. She had found the song. Her song.

And unlike the many times she had heard music in the past years, or seen music boxes, and lost her composure, despite all kinds of training she had gone through, this time, she didn’t run away. She didn’t try to hide. From who? If the ghost was her mind, there was no need to outrun her own mind. It had just found her. And showed her the truth for too long thrown away.

The illusion, or was it really an illusion?- shifted as night fell. Her past self was in the main room, cuddling in a cover behind a window. Somehow, Cassandra still felt the weight of the wool cover wrapped around her little child body, and still felt the warmth it gave her. It was soothing, calming her before the storm she didn’t know yet was coming.

At first, there were horse running to the cottage. Then, soldiers, royal soldiers she analyzed thanks to the carvings on their chest plates, irrupted in the house screaming for the princess. The princess. Oh. So, it was _that_ night.

The kid saw a movement behind the bridge over the river, and trotted to the door. Cassandra followed her, strangely presuming what was about to happen, and dreading her premonition would come true.

And it came true.

Gothel used a sword to cut the bridge and ran away, a babe in her arms. It was only the soldiers and Cassandra from now on. As it had always been.

Except, no, there had been a before. And they had never told her. She had forgotten, too hurt and pained to remember that night, too young maybe. But… all those years she was storming out of discussions, all those years she couldn’t bear the sight or the sound of a music box, sometimes of music itself, why didn’t anyone say anything?

Cassandra fell to her knees, tears flowing like a river, only her river was silent. On the floor, the blue and yellow music box had fallen too.

Both were broken. Both had lost their songs.

The pale ghost was by her side before she could think of anything. And the cottage, the river, the music box, all went away, puffing away, revealing the forest around them.

“Sometimes the most painful truth are the most difficult to remember,” she stated.

She said other words, but Cassandra didn’t listen. Her ears were obstructed, like a tinnitus ringing constantly, encasing her from the world around her.

“They knew all along,” she mumbled.

“What did you say?” asked the ghost, only noticing her lack of attention.

“They knew all along who my mother was, they all knew all along why I had these attacks for years, why I can’t stand the sound of a music box, and they didn’t tell me!”

“My dear, I fear you don’t see my point,” said the ghost, slightly irritated by this one-sided discussion.

“I’ll make them see. All of them.”

“And how do you plan to do that?” she asked, her interest caught back in the conversation.

“You know how.”

“Do I?” she mused.

“You’re in my head, right? You knew all that. You must know how I can make them pay.”

“Oh, that I know, Cassandra. And so do you. As you said it yourself, I’m in you head.”

The ghost floated toward her, innocently approaching the translucent blueish oval gem on her forehead right in front of Cassandra’s eyes. Yet, it was far from an innocent movement.

“The Moonstone,” Cassandra said at the sight of the gem.

“The Moonstone?” repeated the ghost, waiting for her to continue her thought.

“If I take the Moonstone, they’ll have no other choice but to accept their mistakes, but to tell me the whole truth. I’ll make them see. I’ll make them hear me!”

She stood up, anger in her head, yet her legs didn’t follow. They were still shaking. The mind and the body didn’t want the same. One wanted revenge, the other to let things go, to accept the weakness brought back from deep forgotten memories and embrace it, stay with them. But the mind was stronger. She stood up, and walked in the forest, until she saw the door that brought her there in the first place.

As she put her hand on the handle, she knew what to do.

She would make them hear her song. No more music box, no more panic at the sound of childhood, no more running away from talking about her emotions. She’ll find her song, she’ll make them see. She’ll make them hear all the pain they kept her in, all the truths they kept from her, all the years they didn’t help her. She’ll make them hear her song she’ll sing and then, the music would come back. And she wouldn’t panic. She would embrace the song. She would master it and sing it on the roofs of the world if she needed to. They won’t keep anything from her anymore. She won’t let them.

Her mind screamed revenge. It was her anger talking, anger had became her drive, fueled by the innocence of a happy childhood robbed by those many people who, one after another, claimed to love her and want what’s best for her. A pity. They made her the way she was, and now, she wanted to make they suffer. Anger had the answer for being put aside, for being lied to all those too many years.

Fire. Let them see fire. Let hear their songs melted in the songs of crackling fire. Let them burn, all of them. And she would sing her victory.

~ End ~


End file.
